A heart as empty as the sky
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Summary: This is a story about Drizzt moving through the realms and how other people move through them. A story of interactions between travellers who dont really know each other. First Short story so any reviews would truly be appreciated.


Distant clouds extended around the peaks of the mountains. They stretched back beyond them with the sky, shifting in and out of the pale and blue. The soft morning sun was raising itself infront of him. The road twisted uphill beneath its gaze before going down again. Small countryside hills were little impediment to the passage of a seasoned traveller. All the roads were bounded by small walls built of close fitting stones grey and covered in green lichen. Trees sheltered behind them, their barks half in light and darkness. Drizzt could see nobody on the road ahead of him and he found himself smiling for no reason. Distant birds changed direction with barely perceptible movements of their wings, their underbellies flashing white. The almost imperceptible fall of his feet were part of the country sounds. Bushes rustled where small rodents were startled by his presence, in the fields' cows chewed on grass. The white puffs of their breath rose briefly and dissipated. A dog barked in the distance and pots clattered in the kitchen of a farmer's house some distance from the road. Still though there was that sensation of silence, as if it were something the world were wrapped gently in before being opened to the day. For Drizzt this was the way to move. In openness he could breath, the curve of his lips widened further.  
  
He was on the road to Silverymoon again. It was familiar journey but never boring. That eternal joy of taking the next step could never fade. The world was such a wide place. He could barely feel the cold of approaching winter. His pace kept the chill from his bones and there was nothing to do but feel the dance within his heart unfold. Infinitely above the sky opened into blue. He felt like floating, just about to rise forever. A synthesis between the earth and the heavens was reached within in him and he moved between both. Drizzt travelled alone for no reason this time. Visiting with Alustriel would be pleasant but it was enough to be on the road. So long as there was something at the end before he started moving again. The world made sense when he moved in it. His mind opened when there was nothing to think of and he could realise even the pleasure of breathing. The rushes of air up his neck when he exhaled. Forgetting all silly concerns was to have time to realise you were alive and the world was too.  
  
By midmorning he could see that thatched roofs of a village in the lee of a valley. Smoke rising from chimneys and winding up. Gradually he made his way down; it would be a good place to get eat. He would not reach Silverymoon until the sometime tomorrow so he thought he might as well. A cat sleeping on a flowerpot glanced up at him nochalently as he passed by it. He could not remember the places name but he had passed through here a number of times before. An old woman with a red shawl hurled the contents of a chamber pot next to his feet from an upper floor window. Startled he leaped back from the noxious waste to see her blanching at how close she had come to dousing him in her faeces. His dark skin gave her occasion for no small caution but the village was used to his occasional passing through. He could hear children playing as he moved further into the village but that was not what drew him. The smell of freshly cooked bread wafted through the air. Drawn by his nose Drizzt came to the village inn.  
  
A sign with large red letters with the edges painted gold read "The Royal Dancer's Rest". It was the typical village inn but with a somewhat more dramatic name. Dark heavy timbers, in the evening there would probably be lute music. It probably had a single stable with old straw for the horse. Doubtless the innkeeper was stout as a barrel and the serving girls would shy away from him. Inside not many of his illusions were dispelled. There were a few other travellers there for lunch also and a small few farmers. He went in with his hood down. There were breathless exclamations of Drow from most of the outsiders but when they saw the lack of reaction from the villagers they did not become violent. One man with half his nose torn away with the gash running along his face from the remains of his nose to his ear never took his arm off the handle of his axe. Two people never even noticed him though. Internally Drizzt was surprised and happy. He no longer minded the adverse reactions to his appearance but was merely weary of having to deal with them. One could only face the same thing so often without being used to it. Drizzt signalled to one of the serving girls. She truly was a girl, barely more than fourteen with long blond hair and her blue eyes were nervous and wide to have to be the one to take his order. Very briefly he asked for bread and wine and when she left his table the second time she was not half as afraid as she has been. Instead she walked with a confidence of someone who has faced a fear no matter how non- existent it was in reality. Her delicate childlike features when moulded into bravery were a strange kind of joke that could also be a beautiful truth.  
  
As Drizzt ate he observed the couple who had paid him no heed when he entered. They were a puzzle to him but one that he was only vaguely interesting. The woman had long dark hair that ran to her shoulder. She had a creamy complexion and a wide mouth with delicate lips. She wore red and black and the colours suited her. Her eyes appeared intelligent and were now focused intently upon. Her companion, occasionally her lips trembled. She looked so sad Drizzt thought she might crack and fall apart. Some great unknowable tragedy was playing itself out here. Her companion was a man thin as a reed at the waist but with broad shoulders. He had the kind of face Drizzt would normally associate with human kindness. It was a round face with shy brown eyes. He looked as if the words he was saying were tearing him apart but he could not help but say them or lie to the girl, which was so clearly impossible for him. He had his brown hair tied back from his head making his face seem even more open. The woman kept trying to clasp his hand but he kept pulling them away. Eventually he stopped and sat as if his heart had been wrenched out of his chest. Tears fell rolled down the woman's face. At first she tried to hold them back by squinting but she stopped. Drizzt heard her hiss at the man that it was a lie, her passion had been as empty as the sky. Clearly she was saying it to hurt him back for what he had been saying to her but it hurt her more and she seemed to collapse in on herself as she left.  
  
The man sat and spoke clearly to himself as if unconscious that he was speaking his mind. "Aye, as empty as the sky. Yet the sky holds that bright globe: the sun, that great lifegiver. Golden it changes and makes everything around it glow with beauty yet now the storm clouds gather in your heart. Blackness rages and lightning howls in the sky. Yet all storms must one-day end so I hope the storm is with you now. Perhaps one day I will be forgiven.perhaps. I shall be as empty as the winter sky until then: cold and cloudy, blown this way and that". He sat despondent in his chair no longer moving. Drizzt had lived too long to let the upsets of the world bother him much for long anymore. He moved in the world and the world moved around him. Life moved independent of him. Still it was strange to glimpse however briefly into the world of others. To wander suddenly into those rivers of the emotions was terrifying. He had thought himself outside of humanity for a short while and he was so quickly thrust into it. He imagined that the only way to continue to live was to follow wherever the world swept him. Musing in that manner he left the inn.  
  
Outside the clang of metal striking rang across the village. The woman who had left in tears was fending off two thugs in hooded smocks. Their clothes were splattered in mud, boots covered in dried dirt. They both moved clumsily while alternately hacking at her with scythes. Circling and moving back in towards her centre again were bad tactics because it brought them too close to her. She could fend them off easily. Drizzt guessed they were still alive because she was in so much pain. She was still crying and fending the attacks with half a heart. The woman never even struck back but merely let heir scythes slide off a short sword Drizzt had not seen her carrying. He would not be surprised if she decided to let them kill her. Running forwards quickly he kicked the closest one in the lower back. The thug lurched over a wooden fence into the back garden of a house, crumpling to the ground groaning. As the other one swung to Drizzt he was already under his guard. Using the hilt of his blade he struck the farmer in the jaw knocking him unconscious. With a heavy slap the farmer fell to the ground. The woman dropped her short sword. It fell with a clatter and she ignored it. She did not move in any directions. Drizzt thought she could not think of a reason to move in any direction. Her face read incomprehensible grief. He walked closer to her. " Please go back" he said. She stared at the ground and kept wilting beneath her thoughts.  
  
She didn't say a thing but Drizzt could read what her face said. Longing smothered her. She was afraid to go back in, sorrow tinged longing and made that into fear. Could she face his words again? Face whatever he had said or done. Love was there. A love that could stop the hold the moon in the sky, how any one could feel that intensity she had Drizzt could not know. He envied that passion and could understand how she might want to deny their unseen depths.  
  
"Please" he repeated.  
  
"How can I" she responded. Her voice tried for calm but quavered, almost breaking.  
  
"He loves you"  
  
She looked deep into his eyes, not at his skin or at his face. As if trying to recall what he had seen she gazed into him. Drizzt could not look away he could not even tell the colour of her eyes. She held him there. Eventually she looked past him to the inn and strode back towards it. Drizzt was not sure what would happen or what was the cause of their argument but somehow he had become part of their world. He had been outside observing and in that brief moment when they had met there was an unfamiliar intimacy. Drizzt was used to being outside of people, even those he knew, to touch some person's inner heart was to be known. As if discovering him-self, their discovery of him confirmed that he was. Like the blending of colours in a painting they met and diverged but somewhere between that, they had made a new colour. An image that nobody else might ever see but it was there whether it was seen or not. It would hang invisible with him for some time.  
  
Silverymoon was till some distance away. As ever there was little to do but to begin walking. It was another kind of joy. A brown dog trotted by, stopping briefly to sniff at the fallen farmers. Drizzt could only continue to smile again. The road waited with all its curious purposelessness. He could see a patch of small red flowers with short petals further down the road. The clung to the ground like a bush. Somewhere a bird sang, trilling happily as it planned to move for winter. Softly a copse of beech trees waved in the wind, their leaves brushing slowly: a sibilant melody. The air hung between moments, like a breath held. An instant between thought and meaning: don't rush echoed within Drizzt. He had a journey filled ambiguity to travel through. A galaxy of dust blows in every footstep: a brief tumult of swirling beauty until the next step. Why stop walking? 


End file.
